video game development
Focusing on the video game development and design in the video game industry

World’s 100 most successful studios named next month

March 8th, 2008 Posted in Video Game Industry | No Comments »

The world’s 100 most successful studios in the world will be named in the 2008 edition of the Develop 100 next month.

Released at the start of April with that month’s issue of Develop, the Develop 100 is an establised and authoritative must-read book which is referred to year-round by the global publishing and development community.

Will EA win best studio for 2008
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Some other Great Game Dev Blogs

March 8th, 2008 Posted in Video Game Dev | No Comments »

Most of the knowledge available to keen gamers about the gaming industry can be of a pretty low quality. This is because that knowledge is third or fourth hand. As a very minimum it has been “spun” by a marketing department (I have done loads of this) and then “interpreted” by a journalist. But there is a way round this, keen enthusiasts can get their knowledge directly from the horses mouth, if they read the right blogs.

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Shadow of the Colossus’ controls are an exercise in art

March 2nd, 2008 Posted in Video Game Dev | No Comments »

The “videogames as art” movement is a funny thing. Artsy wooks like myself love to wax philosophic about the potential that games have in terms of narration or eliciting meaningful, emotional player responses. We laud innovative game designers for forcing us to make morally ambiguous choices about ourselves and the characters around us. Unfortunately for us in the post-post-pre-metamodern crowd, games as a medium fall short in one crucial, yet easily overlooked, way: They only go half of the distance.

SotC Game Dev

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BioShock wins eight G.A.N.G. audio awards

March 2nd, 2008 Posted in Video Game Audio, Video Game News | No Comments »

2K’s BioShock has won eight awards at the 6th Annual G.A.N.G. Awards, presented by The Game Audio Network Guild - a non-profit organisation supporting the game audio industry.

“Every now and again, life provides one of those great moments of satisfaction for which words are really inadequate to describe,” said BioShock composer Garry Schymann.

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Kojima says “50GB BD Not Enough For MGS4

March 2nd, 2008 Posted in Video Game Dev, Video Game Industry | No Comments »

In an exclusive interview with Hideo Kojima, the creator of Metal Gear Solid series, has made complains about 50GB BD not been sufficient. The Metal Gear Solid producer considers the Blu-Ray disc too small and that they had to make compromises in order to put the game on the 50GB BD. According to Hideo, the programmers had to compress some parts in the game to save disc space.

MGS4 is limited by 50gb space on BR?

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Limited Version Of Home Soon?

March 1st, 2008 Posted in Video Game News, Video Game Dev, Video Game Industry | No Comments »

We’ve just had word from our source that a limited version of Home will go live at Midnight on the 31st of March. The new branch of Home, separate from the closed beta, will be called ‘Flat’, be open for everyone as a free download from the PSN and last for exactly 30 days.

PSN Home Coming Soon

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GDC 2008: Deconstructing Drake’s Fortune

February 28th, 2008 Posted in Video Game Dev, Video Game Industry | No Comments »

Game designer Richard Lemarchand recently gave would-be developers at GDC insights into creating a successful game Naughty Dog style. He started out with the nitty gritty facts: “Have healthy code,” Lemarchand said because it makes the game development process smoother and more polished in the long run. This helps meet deadlines — something Naughty Dog has done time and time again. Lemarchand claimed that “collaboration is key” and gave examples of how designers and engineers, typically specialized and segregated groups, would move to each others desks to help one another. One of the interesting things about Naughty Dog is that it has no official “producers;” anyone at Naughty Dog can pitch ideas. No matter how bad the ideas are, they will always be respected.

Uncharted

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BioWare founders: ‘We’re not done yet’

February 27th, 2008 Posted in Video Game Dev, Video Game Industry | No Comments »

Right after our demo of the PC version of Mass Effect, we had the chance to sit with BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuck for a quick catch-up on recent events. The two men were overjoyed to talk about Mass Effect’s success and critical reception, as well as the uplifting effect the EA buyout has had on the company.

Mass Effect from Bioware

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PC Gaming As We Know It Is Dead

February 26th, 2008 Posted in Video Game Industry | No Comments »

Is PC gaming as we know it dead? Or just shifting course to be the dominant medium of the future? At Dave Perry’s “Lunch With the Luminaries” Peter Molyneux, Phil Harrison, Chris Taylor, Raph Koster and Neil Young discussed what path PC gaming will take in the coming years.

Is PC gaming dead?

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Intel Acquires Offset Software, Project Offset Engine

February 25th, 2008 Posted in Development Tools, Video Game News, Video Game Dev, Video Game Industry | No Comments »

In a surprising move, technology giant Intel has acquired engine team Project Offset, according to a brief statement on the official webpage of the often buzzed-about graphical game engine.

The announcement, from Project Offset’s Sam McGrath, simply explains: “Today we have some major news to announce. Intel has acquired Offset Software. Yes, you read it correctly! Project Offset is going strong and we are excited about things to come. Stay tuned.”

Project Offset Intel

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